The Photo Projects

The Photo Project (2009)

Photography by: Linda Kennon

This thought-filled exhibit combining professional photography with personal stories is both striking and educational.

“When the (LUYV) volunteers contacted me last spring to install the Lift Up Your Voice photo display at the library, I hoped it might increase awareness of the homeless situation here in Ventura. I had no idea that hour after hour, day after day, month after month, people visiting the E.P. Foster Library would examine the photographs of local homeless individuals and read their stories with great interest. I expected to achieve a little community education with the display. What I didn’t realize is that many of the homeless people who use our library would read these life stories and see them as inspiration for their own lives. The display offered hope to us all.”
-Mary Stewart, City Librarian, E.P. Foster Library

“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”

Photograph by: Joe Osborne

In 2013, Lift Up Your Voice debuted a second Photo/Story project that tells the stories of families and children who are homeless.

What kind of dreams can a child dream, when they do not know where and how they will sleep each night?

“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”is a photo project that we hope will open your heart and mind about children and families in our community who experience homelessness. We have endeavored to show the many spaces of childhood homelessness, and to highlight the stories of families that experience homelessness. We invite you to open your heart to each of the 12 exhibits of the project, to the photos of where homeless children in our community sleep, to the art projects that arise from the dreams of these children, to the stories as told to us by the families of these children. The families that have chosen to participate in this project have shown incredible bravery in their willingness to tell their stories.

Lift Up Your Voice would like to give special thanks to Community Organizers Amy Luoma and Vincent Velasquez for working with the families who volunteered to participate in this project, and Photographer and Artist Joe Osborne who photographed and designed the photo project. We would also like to thank the Chalice Lighter Fund of the Pacific Southwest District of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, who provided the funding to make this project possible.

To see larger images from the “To Sleep, Perchance to Dream” photo project, click here for the Facebook album.

Action Opportunity: If you would like to display the Photo Project at your church, business, or community space, please contact us at luyv@liftupyourvoice.org.

Photo Project showings include : The WAV, Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Oxnard Community College Library, Ventura County Government Center, Ojai Public Library, E. P. Foster Library, Conejo Valley Unitarian Church, Ventura City Hall, Ventura Missionary Church, Temple Beth Torah, Church of the Foothills, and the 4th of July Street Fair.

UU Church of Ventura

The Venerable Kusala, an American born Buddhist monk, will reflect on the causes of attachment and clinging, and the challenge of letting go. Kusala has spoken many times at UUCV sharing his wisdom, humor and music. Worship Associates Joe Hutchins and Celia Ortenberg. Music by the UUCV Choir.